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LECTURE 



THE STUDY OF HISTORY, 



APPLIED TO 



THE PROG Px, ESS OF CIVILIZATION: 



DELIVERED, BV APPOINTMENT, 



THE UNION LITERARY SOCIETY, 



MAY 2, 1839. 



WASHINGTON : 

BLAIR AND RIVES, PRINTERS. 
1839. 



fl. 't; 



^\a'^ 



Ty. , 



^ I^ECTURE 

ON THE 

Study of history, applied to the progress of civilization. 



Gentlemen : 

Of all organized beings, man alone enjoys the con- 
sciousness of ages that have preceded his existence ; 
and with him dwell upon this earth millions of crea- 
tures who can trace back the annals of the universe 
to one day, one hour of antiquity. His is the peculiar 
power to classify all the events that mark the progress 
of his species over the earth, in the immense scale of 
human ages and human destinies; whilst, in his com- 
plex nature, he feels and acknowledges, within himself, 
the combined workings of centuries. Alone he knows 
that, before he was born, beings, similar to himself, 
unconsciously prepared the place which he occupies in 
the pageantry of time. Alone he knows that he is 
fated to die; and that every thing, which surrounds, will 
survive him — both the universe, in the midst of which 
he is throned, and humanity itself, of which he is an 
integral part. What shall be the forms that may be 
reproduced, and what the individuals who shall come 
at"ter him, he cannot, with safety, previously determine; 
but he is sufficiently certain that above those ephemeral 
forms, and in spite of the efforts of individuals, the 
power of reason, of justice, and of freedom shall soar, 
strengtiiening with the strength of each year, and 
fortified by the exercise of private and public morality. 



The offspring of ages, humanity, that ever-moving and 
ever-changing, niuhiplieJ being, sums up all liuraan 
existence; and all thisigs earthly, from the empire that 
crumbles into dust, to the heart that lircaks in its 
agony, are absorbed in its vast recipients, and modify 
it with their substances and their energies. Hence, 
death is but an ascending transformation ; and tiie life 
of nations a time-mark in r.niversal life — a stray leaf 
from a majestic tree — a page from a speaking volume, 
by which we explain the import of the present and 
the future, through the rcvealings of the jsast. 

Such is the position which man occupies in the pano- 
rama of history, the philosophy of which, applied to tlie 
civilization of mankind, we mean to glance at in this 
disquisition. But before proceeding witii the sniiject, 
we would bespeak the indulgence of the society for one 
general remark, wdiich may not be unnecessary to a 
better understanding of the views which we shall 
unfold, in the fulfilment of the duty kindly assigned 
us by the partiality of our associates. That axiom — 
for it may jusdy be so termed — is, that tiic deveiope- 
ment of society is v/rought, not in a direct, but in a 
spiral, line. Humanity, in its ascending course, has, 
not unfrequently, recoiled upon itself, the more forcibly 
to act against some sudden and interveniijcr obstacle. 
It fulfils its destinies by two distinct and aUeriuite 
movements — one of creation r.isd the oti;er of destruc- 
tion. The latter — in tiie rni.dst of which (lie former 
order of things is annulled, wlietlior by reason of its 
dangers or its insniliciency — obtains till tiic advent of 
the providential iiour, that reveals a new principle of 
order to the world. Thus the existence of hnmam'tv, 



under changing phases and forms, kindling up but to 
be quenched, and quenched again to kindle up and 
reproduce the magnificent phenomena of civilization, 
is aptly ihustrated by the fabled phoenix of antiquity. 
It is, in its essence, like the flaming bush of the 
Genesis, which burned, yet could not be consumed. 

Let us, however, open the vohuxie of history itself — 
the archives of mankind, and record of their progress 
and their checks. It is a marvellous book, rife with 
eloquent and enduring lessons — a great and living 
work, of the Deity, made manifest through the works 
of his creatures — a real, yet intelligent, tower of Bel us, 
where all the nations that had, or have, existence on 
earth come for their lost centuries and tongues — their 
morals and their customs — their reverses and their 
triumphs. One hasty and eagle glance at that great 
chartulary of the human race, and see how it reveals 
the work of civilization, successively spreading its in- 
roads over the world. 

In the Dedalian fabric of the primitive ages, the 
historian stands as the solitary pilgrim, journeying 
through regions unexplored. The darkness of night 
stoops over the earth — many v/inding paths delude his 
footsteps — the treacherous ILirc of the marsh nicteor 
fticlvers before his eyes; while some dim and far-off star 
iln-ows a reluctant liglit on his dubious road. And, 
indeed, what do we know of the old human races that 
have colonised this earth? We, who are ignorant of 
the precise history of the great moral and social facts, 
on which the whole structure of our civilization is 
based? Wo, who gropingly catch at t!ie origin of the 
three primordial facts — in the absence of which no 



others would exist — the institution of property, mar- 
riage, and individual liberty? What do we know of 
the jEthiopian civilization of ancient Axuma, the city 
of granite and of porphyry? What of royal Meroe, 
who founded Amnion, Memphis, and Thebes ; and 
whose homeric renown is lost in tlie shadows of ante- 
diluvian civilization ? What of the protestantism of the 
primitive world — of the commotions which outbreak 
with the rearing of Babel, in the confusion of tongues, 
ideas, religions, individuals, and societies? Who has 
handed down the deeds of those Nembrods, who super- 
seded the old, by the new, doctrine — the doctrine of the 
Serpent — who shivered the tabernacles of God, and 
reared up the temples of Baal — who, to the age of 
light, substituted the age of Chronos, with his orgiac 
worship ? Whose are the ens triplex et os trilinguc, 
the brazen throat and the three-tongued mouth, that 
shall fling us this forgotten story across the chasm of 
aofes and the roar of revolutions? 

Yet, in spite of these drawbacks, no intellectual 
pursuit, if we except the examination of the laws of 
reason and of nature, commands a deeper interest tiian 
the contemplation of the progressive march of mankind 
over the globe. If philosophy exhibit man, according 
to the scope and the perfectibility of his individual 
faculties, and in the enjojaiicnt of the almost ideal hap- 
piness, wliicli he is destined to attain, history reveals 
him, according to his innumerable manifestations, in 
the light of reality, bent on the prosecution of that 
high and ultimate attainment. If we love to lend an 
attentive ear to the sublime harmonies of creation — to 
the ineffable melody of mysterious voices wandering 



'twixt heaven and earth, now waihng in gentle iEohan 
murmurs, and again breaking out in a full chorus of 
wild accordances — how much more deeply should we 
dv/ell on the secular voice of humanity sending abroad 
its cry of civilization; how much more intensely should 
we linger round the solemn drama of freedom, evolving 
itself under the providential action of God? From the 
east to the west — from the Persian conqueror to the 
Corsican adventurer — we see crowns that topple, and 
sceptres that break ; form after form of civilization 
rolling into the abysm of time ; nations, thundering in 
their majesty or moaning in despair, tottering round the 
banquet of freedom, or ground down by the car of 
despotism. 

Viewing history under the aspect of present useful- 
ness, the science is of unquestionable advantage to all 
the members of society who aspire at a higher degree 
of moral and intellectual culture. With the statesman 
it is a portion of his most essential knowledge; and 
this because the principles of political philosophy, when 
all is told, are but the systematised results of the salu- 
tary or fatal experiences of nations. To the warrior it 
furnishes the most effective lessons, and holds up the 
most perfect models of imitation. The churchman 
derives from it immense treasures of practical wisdom, 
high morality, and redeeming doctrines. The legist it 
inspires with holy respect for natural and written right, 
and for the fundamental maxims of social order. To 
the law-giver it reveals the arcana and spirit of political 
institutions — the relations which these institutions bear 
to the conditions and wants of the people ; and, in the 
annals of ancient and foreign legislation, supplies him 



s 

with satisfuciory and lucid points of comparison with 
modern and domestic laws. Shall 1 advert to the 
precious and incalculable advantages t!iat professions, 
foreign to science, properly so called, may derive from 
history? V/ithont its aid the merchant, himself, the 
Sanuti, the Medici, the Van tialens, the Ouvrards, the 
Roscoes, and the Hancocks, could neither duly estimate 
the supreme influence of commerce on the prosperity 
and civilization of empires ; nor discriminate the quali- 
ties that are necessary, and the errors that are fatal, 
to the permanence of cominercial states. Under its 
guidance tliey soar above tlic vulgar and narrow spirit 
of traflic, and conciliate private speculations with the 
general interests of the community. Free from its 
wholesonic lessonings, the world, to tlicra, is but a vast 
empory, a universal mart, where men are destined to 
buy and sell — their country the counting-house, and 
lucre their God ! History delights in pouring forth the 
abundance of its tcaciiings to all, who approach it with 
a pure spirit and a willing sense. To all it stands as 
the inexorable judge of nations — the eternal protest of 
mind against matter — the indefeasible testimony of the 
progressive triumph of human freedom. 

But take history from the special attributes which 
we liave assigned to it ; carry it into the more extended 
bounds of the universe ; and feed the mental eye with 
the vast and moving panorama of nations and of cen- 
turies. Active portions of mankind, let us question the 
annals of history on the destinies of mankind ; and on 
the sacred Hestia of antiquity — the hearth-stone of the 
past — kindle up the torch-light of the future ! Con- 
sidered under this scientific view, history will cease to 



be an agreeable pastime, a bare diversion for fancy and 
for memory. It becomes a l)igh criterion of philosophy, 
politics, and legislation. It is, at once, the real and 
snbstantial code of hnmanity; and an immense epic in 
which each nation enacts, in its tnrn, the part to which 
it hasj by its nature, been assigned. And, in truth, 
what care we for tlie noisy discussions of the agora, 
the turbulent vote of the Pnyx, the stately debate of 
the senate, the battle tields of Attica and Latium, if 
we have no opportunity of analysing the ideas which 
nations represent in the economy of universal life? — if 
we be deprived of the means of ascertaining whether 
humanity has lost or won — receded or advanced — iti its 
journey of untold centuries? 

Noble and great, therefore, is the mission of those 
who write out the records of history. The true levites 
of humanity they, whose anointed priesthood may not 
be shackled by the influences of any predominant sys- 
tem, wliether political or religious. No spirit of sect 
may dim, no interest of caste distort, their mental 
vision, or corrupt their mature judgments; and it is 
not the least of the privileges and tendencies of the 
philosophy of history to disuse the mind from the 
thraldom of petty opinions and hasty awards. Like 
the Jupiter of Homer, it scans, with an equally serene 
and equitable eye, the bloody toils of Mars, and the 
useful labors of Minerva. However irregular the action 
of human freedom appear, when compared with the 
relative march of the world, history judges its move- 
ments with fate-like immutabihty, because its far-reach- 
ing look descries in the distance the limits of rational 
freedom, and the bourne of delirious despotism. E j)nr 



10 

si onnove! And yet it moves, exclaims Galileo, on the 
rotation of the earth. And we, too, in the face of skep- 
tics and tyrants, we exclaim of human freedom : and 
yet it does move ! For we find somethino; within us 
that will not yield — somethinof that rejects the yoke of 
nature and of man — something that acknowleges no 
allegiance but the allegiance to reason and to the 
laws — something that admits no truce betv/een itself 
and fatalism. May the conflict last, and forever last ! 
It constitutes the dignity of our nature, and the har- 
mony of the v/orld ; and it will last so long as human 
will shall tower up against the influences of climate 
and races combined — so long as the naine of freedom 
shall be syllabled by the lips of men ! 

Three writers have specially investigated the organic 
laws, under the action of which humanity developes its 
elements. France in her Bossuet, Italy in her Vice, 
and Germany in her Herder, claim the honor of having 
settled the bases of the philosophy of history ; for Eng- 
land, in that branch of human science, is thrown far in 
the shade, in spite of the essays of her Fergusons and 
her Dunbars — the observations of Miller, or the dis- 
courses of Priestley. Ijossuet traces up all Imman 
events to the secret designs of Providence, and estab- 
lishes the intervention of the Deity in all the leading 
actions of mankind. Grasping, in his eagle glance, the 
succession of ages, he marshals forth the immense train 
of nations and kings, passing from life to death, under 
the direction of God himself. Cased in celestial armour, 
he battles against the interests of earth from the height 
of religious principles and religious truths. Sounding 
this terrible lamentation of the Hebrew sase as a war 



11 

cry, " vanity of vanities, all is vanity," he compels, 
before the torrents of his darkly-rushing genius, races 
and monarchies, with their triumphs and their pomps, 
and hurls them into one indiscriminate tomb. Empires 
totter and crumble into ashes — dynasties start up, tyran- 
nize, and pass away — the highways of mankind are 
cumbered with ruins — the ruins disappear beneath the 
dust of nations ; and Bossuet smiles bitterly on the 
gloomy pageant, and stamps it with the fiat of Heaven ! 
Vico, supported by the energies of a profound, vigorous, 
and synthetic intellect, rests the solution of the problem 
at once on the absolute laws of the mind ; and, in this 
view, stands as the representative of the spiritualism 
of history. Herder, sagacious and powerful as is his 
genius, leans to the opposite extreme, and allows too 
large a share to the action of nature and to external 
impressions. Bnt equally as profound as the Neapoli- 
tan philosopher, he is also as sublime as Bossuet. His 
philosophy of the history of mankind lulls the soul into 
a state of mental somnambulism. Its perusal acts with 
wizard power, and all but translates the reader into 
an antique and venerable fane, in which the shadowy 
reminiscences, as of things that have actually been, 
crowd on his memory from all places and time. The 
generations of the past press forward in silence, and 
hang up, on brazen columns, indestructible tablets, on 
which is chiselled the story of their trials and their 
conflicts, their sufferings and their hopes. Seated on 
heaps of bleached bones — the grandia ossa — the 
gigantic skeletons of nations, the prophet-historian 
removes the veil that conceals realms destroyed, and 
points out to the glories of races unborn. First are 



12 

arrayed, before the eye, througli mysterious transfig- 
urations, the patriarchs of PisclidacI, the monarchs 
of Iran, and the Gods of India, surrounded by count- 
less vassal tribes. Through the trenriulous and vapory 
light of primitive history, we follow, with restless 
curiosity and aching interest, the pompous and solemn 
march of mankind. Nations hurtle each other ; their 
destinies are linked and severed in turn ; whilst the 
almost omnipotent hand of Herder unravels the im- 
perceptible thread, to which truth binds the traditions 
of the past. Whether he ascend with you, the mil Io- 
niums, and drag from their grave the representatives 
of all time that has been ; whether lie guide you to 
the religious sanctuaries of Persepohs, or the aristo- 
cratic citadel of Rome; whether he unfold the Pelasgic 
origins of Greece, or delve into the mysteries of 
boding Etruria ; whether he cull rich flowers on the 
ashes of empires, or foretell the future splendors of 
favored races ; he every where, and in all cases, holds 
up and reproduces these eternal formulas of all his- 
tory — humanity, progress, and regeneration ! 

Following the giant prints, which these great masters 
have left in the career of historic philosophy, I should 
like to expound the trinitarian dogma on which they 
rest the truth of all liistory: God, nature, and mind. 
History thus viewed would not be inappropriately typi- 
fied by the harp of the Saxon, mimiesdngers, which 
warbled on three melodious chords: one for love, which 
is the mind — the other for nature — and the third for 
God. But my object is to inquire, for the moment, into 
the spirit of history itself, not to examine systems, as 
exponents of human actions and human ideas. History 



13 

is the logic of the popular mind — a form of universal 
judgment — the statement of the successive advances 
of humanity towards physical, intellectual, and moral 
improvement. Its progress has necessarily produced a 
struggle between tv/o hostile and rebellious elements — 
matter and mind — moral power and brutal force. This 
struo;gle is coeval with the world. Yet we should not 
hence infer that it is infinite, though no mortal may 
predict the period when it shall cease : its duration is 
folded in the impenetrable veil of the Egyptian Isis. 
Enough that it has obtained every where, and in all 
recorded time ; but there is an earnest, to us, of suc- 
cess — of final success — in the conviction that, on the 
whole, the conflict is favorable to man. Of the two 
adversaries one cb anodes not ; the other does, and aains 
daily accessions of vigor and strength. Nature remains 
ever the same ; while man is hourly asserting some 
triumph over her immutability. The Alps — those ice- 
giants — the eternal wardors of sunny Italy — are the 
same as when the hand of God first sunk their founda- 
tions in the earth ; and yet the power of man has 
humbled their haughty crests, and furrowed their 
rugged sides with an imperishable monument of his 
patience and his genius. Wind and wave are as 
fitful and capricious as when God first called them 
into action ; but the steam ship devours the capricious 
wave, and scorns the fitful v/ind. 

This conflict, it has already been observed, has 
obtained in every age and clime. Follow the human 
race, in the long and solemn pilgrimage, which it 
accomplished, from the chains of the Himalaya to the 
Scandinavian Alps ; from the banks of the Ganges to 



14 

the sliores of Iceland ; and you will find it slcnily 
raging as well among the races, over whose cradle 
mythology has flung its gold and purple mantle, as 
among those nations where civilization has stamped its 
deepest impress: in Hindostan as well as China; in 
o-loomy and material Egypt, as in laughing and spiritual 
Greece ; in mercenary and traOlcking CarthagC; as in 
proud and patrician Home. Among the ancient Medes 
this duel was, in some measure, represented by the 
struofofle between Ormuzd and Arhimanes; and, accord- 
ing to the religious myth of Zoroaster, light must 
idtimately conquer : that is, ignorance and antagonism 
shall successively depart, and science and peace achieve 
the mastery of the world. 

The highest degree of perfection to which man is, 
by nature, destined, grows out of the free and complete 
developement of his individuality, under the influences 
of beauty, goodness, and truth, and of his close and 
brotherly union with his fellow-laborers on earth. The 
principle of human perfectibility will, therefore, when 
fully developed, induce a state in which mind and 
matter, reconciled to each otlier, will produce a lofty 
and splendid harmony; in which each special order of 
mind will find a corresponding object, and a proper 
sphere of action and usei'ulness ; in which man. instead 
of wasting his powers in fruitless strifes, will exert them 
in subjugating material nature; in which the injnry, 
accruing to one member, and profiling no one, shall be 
considered, by all, as wrong inflicted on the whole of 
society; in which the shackling of evil passions will 
put an end to the conflict between virtue and vice — a 
conflict which v/ill be survived by a generous emu la- 



15 

tion, only, among the worthy, to do the most good ; a 
state of rest, which will not be indolent inaction, and a 
stale of action, which shall have ceased to be tnmnl- 
tuous agitation. Then, and then only, shall the pro- 
mises of the martyr-God be realized. Then, and then 
only, shall it be trnly said of man that he loves his 
neighbor as himself; for he will love him as a part of 
a whole, of which he himself is but another part. 
Then, and then only, shall Japheth's daring seed, as the 
Roman lyrist calls us, reconquer the symbolical Aiden, 
forfeited by the common ancestor, exulting in the choice 
spoils which they shall have gathered during their cen- 
turies of toil in the fields of the arts and the sciences. 

Such is the society which awaits the futurity of the 
world. Under what combination of circumstance and 
time it shall be fashioned, cannot be ascertained. But 
history unerringly points to it — reason sanctions it; 
while, at the same time, it teaches that it shall be given 
to man to compass its attainment ; for reason embodies 
certain invariable principles which, when once asserted 
and grasped by the people, are used by them as a 
resting point for further and extended operations, in 
regard to the principles themselves, their progress will 
no longer consist in variation, innovation, or change ; 
but their immutability shall be the basis of all improve- 
ment, which, out of this condition, would be liable 
to the same oscillations and doubts, in the midst of 
which man has hitherto all but fruitlessly consumed 
his powers and his strength. Now, those principles 
will obtain so soon as natural law — I mean the law 
deduced from human reason, as a criterion of truth— 
the law inherent to our sociable nature, and harmo- 



16 

nising with humanity in nil places and time : so soon 
as that law, in accordance with the moral law of 
Christianity, shall have every where supplanted the 
conventional law, which is not based, however we may 
try to conceal it, upon the ijeneral constitution of 
human nature, but upon the partial interests of indi- 
viduals, corporations, cities, provinces, and Slates— 
upon the necessity of circumstances and the will of 
the lawmaker. 

That such a society may be realized in a ^wcn 
time we are bound to believe with as much certainty 
as we believe that wc are gifted witli tlic exercise of 
reason. We must, otherwise, surrender to the har- 
rowing conviction that our appearance here is but an 
aimless and fantastic farce ; that some evil genius, after 
having engraved in our nature an instinct of that 
which is impossi!)lc, modes at our insatiable appetences 
and our panting efforts rountl a charmed circle, in 
which we ever return to the starting point ; that, after 
all, the tradition of Tantalus is no fable; and that this 
world is but a vast gehenna, in which perpetual torture 
and perpetual disappointment are the inevitable lot of 
man. But bow can we withhold our faith from a 
doctrine co-extensive widi the mind, and brilliant as 
hope itself? A doctrine for which the Saviour suffered 
on earth; and which martyrs and sages have vindicated 
with their blood and their lives, offered up in testimony 
of its truth? Many may view these monitions of 
history as phantasms of the brain ; or brand rational 
inductions as Utopian dreams. Let them ! When the 
first troglodyte issued from his cavern into the social 
world, and returned to his fellow-intelligent brutes with 



17 

the story of civilization abroad, they met liis words 
with derision and scorn ! They, bound in the dark- 
ness of their caves and the fihh of their clay hovels, 
could not realize the splendors of the palace and the 
comforts of its life. They too — had the supercilious 
word, invented by their imitators, been known — they, 
too, would have exclaimed, Utopia ! They, whose 
inch-deep intellect, or whose all-controlling jirejudices, 
stop at the surface of things, and, viewing the evils 
only which still afflict society, pronounce the notion of 
perfectibility to be chimerical and vain, they do not 
intelligently attend to the sober teachings of reason 
and truth. Man, as a sensual being, belongs to the 
world of the senses ; and that is an habitual state of 
war between his physical powers — a belliua onwium 
contra omnes — a war of all against all. But, again, 
man, as a rational being, also belongs to the world of 
mind ; and, as such, he is destined, by the law of his 
spiritual nature, to subdue the material world. The 
complement of that law will be to defeat the belli- 
gerance of material forces ; and, at some providential 
period, to assert the full and definite triumph of reason, 
and the consequent prevalence of happiness and peace. 
Individuals now enjoy that triumph of reason and 
blessing of peace. Why should they not extend to 
the collective being called society? To argue that it 
cannot, is to argue that there is no essential law that 
will equally apply to man in his individual and social 
capacity : it is to advance an unnatural, an anti-social, 
and a degrading paradox : it is to strike at the vitality 
of virtue, through the freedom of man's will, and 
3 



18 

madly to insult the superhuman wisdom of Him who 
made man the proxy of liis power ! 

Though in our day the spirit may flag — the mind 
shrink — at the prospect of the decisive battle that 
shakes the globe ; why, the faculties of the mind must 
be schooled, the daring of the spirit nerved, for the 
trial of tliat " world-winning battle." The contest is 
not as fearful as it seems. On one side tlie past, with 
its rusty shield and broken glaive — the past, with all 
its antipathies, its Gothic abuses and feudal wrongs, 
sunmioning, from their leaden cofllns, the shades of 
eigliteen centuries of efiete ideas and exploded forms, 
steps down the arena to man the fight; and on the 
other the future, with its warm-blooded and warm- 
hearted generations, instinct with snblime hopes and 
panting with ardent faith, claiming either hemisphere 
for a battle-ground, stands prepared to strike for the 
regeneracy of social man. 

The proud result of this meliorating spirit is fiiuil 
and inevitable. We cannot doubt, where doubt would 
be irrational. As in the realm of nature light disperses 
darkness; so in the reahu of intelligence, the broad 
glare of science will disperse all mental obscurity. 
We believe in the holy contagion of virtue. Human 
opinion, that moral lever that moves the world, and 
which, unknown or unheeded in the former half of the 
eighteenth century, has for the last sixty years exerted 
itself, with successful energy, against the decrepid forms 
of feudal tyranny, will not stop in its onward course of 
radical reform and social regeneration. 

Those who love man for the intrinsic and innate 
good, which centuries of bondage, degradation, and 



19 

misgovernment have not all obliterated, because its 
origin is divinely stamped in his heart ; those who 
cherish an abiding faith in the imperishably glorious 
destinies of mankind, because they rest on the sanction 
of a heavenlj^ promise ; they might desire and invoke 
the reform of nations, without the ordeal of violence, 
and through the agency of mind alone. But humanity 
has hitherto failed in the merely peaceful assertion of 
Its rights. The inauguration of the purest and holiest 
of doctrines was marked by a sacrifice ; and every 
transcendent social creation seems doomed to the 
initiation of strife and the baptism of blood. 

A tendency, notwithstanding, towards a higher scale 
of perfection, even under the most repulsive circum- 
stances, is the final end. as it is the primitive and 
fundamental law, of society. It is the logos — the word 
for which Socrates died, and which, dying, he be- 
queathed to the social apostles, who have consecrated 
it with holocausts of lives. JNow that progress exists ; 
it is proclaimed by the voice of history and attested by 
the monuments of time. The principle of antagonism, 
to which I have adverted, and which was the plague- 
spot of the institutions of antiquity, is, beyond question, 
on the decline. Civilization multiplies its forms, and 
flashes over the universe like a flame of a thousand 
rays. This fairy of modern days has smitten the 
Cerberus of despotism with her golden bough ; and the 
Klepht of Greece and Rayah of Egypt feel the power 
of her intellectual magnetism. The East, slumbering 
for ages in the tomb, with its vast knowledge, its vast 
monuments and vast empires, flings ofi'its hoary shroud 
and swells the banner-cry of nations. The land of the 



20 

Pharaohs, and the home of Demosthenes, start from 
their secular sleep: around the ruins of the Parthenon, 
and beneath the shadow of tlie Pyramids, we hear the 
grateful hum of the public schools. The pen of the 
writer mocks the sword of the warrior: and we may 
still exclaim with old Homer: '-We thank the gods that 
we are better than our sires." We thank the gods ; 
and we struggle that our children may one day, I trust, 
exult in the same boast. It is right, however, not to 
yield too easily to the convictions of a better order of 
things. The days of happiness are not yet, when eacli 
one shall be able, according to his wishes and his 
tastes, to cultivate his allotted fixculties, and to compass 
the best means of providing for the future and its 
wants. The catastrophe of the long and bloody drama, 
which has stained the theatre of the world, it not yet 
at liand — a drama, bristling with dao-gers and axes, 
racks and scaiiblds, and other implements of torture, 
bloodshed, and deoth. IS'ot to us, who have seen so 
many and glorious hopes cropped in the bloom; not to 
us, who advance, with the carcass of feodalisra still 
lumbering our course; viot to us, who, sick with the 
baseness of the unprincipled and the turpitudes of 
power, have sometimes looked witii a skeptic eye into 
the womb of time, and reluctantly, agonizingly shriek- 
ed, bottomless perdition; not to us belongs, as yet, the 
l)eaceful security of the llouian's verse : 

"Suave mari magno, tnrbantibns reqiiora ventis, 
E terra, magnum alterius speciare laborem." 

'Tis sweet, while winds convulse the vasty deep, 
To view, from off the shore, the laboring bark. 

There, unfortunately, are nations and men who scorn 
or misapply the lessons of history; disregard the threat- 



21 

fill monitions of gone by ages, and violate rights, pur- 
chased at the price of unmeasured blood ; who sacrifice 
to personal ambition the public liberties, or uphold, by- 
force or fraud, worn out and inadequate systems, insti- 
tutions, and laws ; nations and men, who oppose the 
introduction of salutary and gradual reforms ; and, 
with suicidal fatuity, deepen the gulf that ultimately 
absorbs them. 

Many a great man, no doubt, has been misunderstood 
by his cotemporaries. Many a reformer has fallen the 
victim of generous convictions ; and we know that the 
hemlock and the hyssop are not spared the chosen of 
Heaven, who lead the front ranks of humanity in the 
apostleship of civilization. We know that the Redeemer, 
crucified on Calvary, is the incarnation of every inno- 
vating idea, of every attempt at progress and emanci- 
pation ; a living and eternal symbol — mocked with a 
thorny crown by his cotemporaries, and worshipped 
with enthusiasm by a devoted posterity. We know that 
Cato tore his vitals in despair, and that More laid his 
head on the fatal block ; but we know also that, in the 
universal bible of history is engraved, in fiery charac- 
ters, one solacing and prominent truth : that nothing 
great, beautiful, and good, once enacted, has ever been 
lost or fruitless to mankind. Posterity clings with 
noble transport to the truths which its predecessors 
could not or would not appreciate ; and in other periods, 
and under other circumstances, we witness the triumph 
of principles and doctrines which might, once, have 
brought tortures and death to their advocates. But tlic 
times are favorably changed. The moral law of 
humanity is slowly but steadily developing its latent 



22 

energies. Prometheus has atoned for his glorious im- 
piety. He indignantly bursts the sliackles that bound 
him to the rock of agony. His voice has shouted away 
the loathsome vultures that preyed upon his heart. 
The nobly-daring hand, that filched the fire from 
heaven, has reached the torch of civilization to the 
new-born generations, who, like tlie competitors in the 
race of the Panathcncea, will commit it to their suc- 
cessors, a bright, radiating, and untpienched beacon- 
light, that shall guide their footsteps through a futurity 
of all but boundless happiness. 

To those new-born generations — the trustees of the 
rights and hopes of mankind — specially belongs the 
better apprehension of the past and the future. 'I'hey 
have the power, if the will be not inert. But, to all, 
the task of advancing the cause of freedom, science, 
virtue, and happiness, is equally and imperatively 
assigned. For the truth of it -1 attest the ashes of the 
heroes of humanity in every clime, and the monuments 
of poj)ular admiration and popular gratitude. To 
you particularly, who evidence a laudable ambition of 
knowledge, I would now address myself. Do not 
despair, should you, in your day, as in the da^'-s of 
Socrates, hear the language of skepticism and gloom. 
You will be told that the world is old, and no belter, 
worse perchance, than when it came fresh and un- 
warped from the hand of God ; that the divine idea 
is waning from the earth, and the consummation of 
time is at Imnd. Repel the inauspicious bodings ; they 
are the flworite weapons of iniquity and despotism. 
Amid the variations of mere forms, there is something 
essential and immutable that remains proud, defying. 



23 

and indestructible. The world, in which you Hve, is 
still the city of God. Civil order and social right, so 
dearly achieved by ^^-our fathers, are still divine with 
justice and morality. The flame of patriotic feeling 
and noble thouglits is not quenched. Ours is not a 
disinherited world : the eternal fiither, in despite of 
tyrants, in the treasuries of his wisdom, still reserves 
for unborn generations undying freedom, the goodly 
patrimony of mankind. Whatever may be our waver- 
ings and doubts, in these periods of transition, let us 
trust in the destinies of man, the progress of mind, and 
the permanence of liberty. That trust we must pin- 
nacle on the Herculean pillars of history. When mere 
ideas flit in confusion before you, turn to the facts of 
humanity and question their import. Invoke the cen- 
turies that have been handed to the keeping of time ; 
spell and examine those prophecies of the past, and 
you majr perchance in the surrounding darkness catch 
a dawning ray of the future. We read in Herodotus 
of an Asiatic tribe, who promised the crown to him 
who should first see the breaking of day. All looked 
intently to the east — all but one, who listlessly watched 
the opposite quarter of the heavens. And, behold, 
while the east was still wrapped in gloom, the faint 
glimmerings of morn were already bleaching the sum- 
mit of a western tower. Let the east, then, the fountain 
of light and the home of the sunshine, exult in its 
beaming' glories. Our land, the land of the west — the 
last asylum of the oppressed — is the watch tower of 
nations, flooded with the light of mind, freedom, and 
happiness ! 



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